Fake news (aka propaganda) has always been with us, just not in the hands of so many little people. Now it appears the genie’s out of the bottle and all the King’s horses and all the King’s men might not be able to put it back in…

Fake information will pervade mature economies in the next few years, a new study has noted.

By 2022, most people in mature economies will consume more false information than true information, according to the study from research firm Gartner.

This trend will be fueled, in part, by "confirmation bias," that "leads all people to seek out, select and value information that parallels what they believe and expect to be proven true," the study's authors, Magnus Revang and Whit Andrews, found.

And even improved artificial intelligence (AI), which companies like Facebook and Google are working on, won't be able to stop it, a separate study by Gartner found. "Counterfeit reality" or fake content, will "outpace AI's ability to detect it."

Generating false information will always cost less than the cost of detecting it. "False information will consequently outpace true information where there is economic or political interest to purvey it," Revang and Andrews wrote. Read more.

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Welcome to the Art of the Prank, produced and edited by Joey Skaggs. Here you will find insights, information, news and discussions about art, pranks, hoaxes, culture jamming & reality hacking around the world - past, present and future - mainstream and counter culture. You are invited to contribute to its development. May your journey be filled with more than your expectations.

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